


Taphophobia

by Hinn_Raven



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on A Leverage Episode, Buried Alive, Felix Being a Dick, Horror, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Wash wakes up buried alive in a coffin. In a race against time, the team searches for him.





	Taphophobia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltsanford](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/gifts).



> Alternate Title: Put My Wash in the Ground
> 
> I cracked a joke about burying Wash alive to the marvelous saltsanford and, much to my surprise, she didn't yell at me. Instead she told me to "DO IT, BUT DO IT JUST LIKE THE LEVERAGE EPISODE". So I absolutely went there. (It's from The Grave Danger Job, if you guys haven't seen it, which you should, because it's great.) Hope you guys enjoy! 
> 
> Specially thanks to comefeedtherainn for being my beta here!

Wash wakes up, and he doesn't know where he is, how long ago he got there, or how long he’s been asleep for. It takes only a few seconds to realize that something is wrong. The throbbing in his head is the familiar ache of something very hard hitting the back of it, and blind groping for a light reassuringly reveals that he’s not been tied up, but he can’t find any light switches or a lamp. Instead, he finds a strange, quilted surface on either side of him.

“Hello?” Wash calls. That’s when he realizes that there’s something in front of his face. Hesitantly, he reaches up and pushes at it, hoping for give. There isn’t any. Frowning, he checks his surroundings more thoroughly, realizing that he’s in some sort of box. What kind, he’s not sure, but what kind of box is this well fitted for a person, and padded on the inside, no less?

A vague memory of Felix slides into his mind. He was standing next to an open coffin, a shovel over one shoulder, and a smirk on his face as Wash walks into the room. It had only been a moment later when the shovel had smacked Wash on the head, and everything had gone dark, only for him to wake up here.

 _Fuck_.

Wash slams his fists against the lid of the coffin. Already he can feel panic setting in as he takes full stock. He’s wearing the goddamn _suit_ that Tucker had bought him, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been in here, he doesn’t know how much air he’s got left.

It takes him a few minutes of punching the soft, padded lid of the coffin and screaming himself hoarse for him to realize he’s burning the air he’s got. He forces himself to take a single, deep breath, then begins to search his pockets. As he moves, his elbows keep knocking into the sides of the coffin. Moving too much means his feet hit the wall by his feet. Were coffins always so lacking in space? Wash hasn’t ever thought about that before. A light, a knife to help him cut through the padding so he can try to cut his way out of the coffin, _anything_ that can help him get out of here.

He finds his cellphone, and his heart leaps. The screen is lit up, and he sees now what he’d failed to notice in his panic.

Tucker is calling him.

Wash sinks his fingers into the padded surface of the lid, takes a deep breath of the stale air, and then answers the call.

“Tucker?”

“Wash!” Tucker sounds panicked; almost as panicked as Wash feels. He’d never realized how _small_ coffins were, before this. The lid feels barely an inch from his face, and he thinks he can hear the groan of six feet of earth above him, the weight of it threatening to crush him. “You’re okay!”

Wash feels a hysterical laugh begin to build in his chest. He tries to suppress it. He doesn't know how long he was asleep for, he doesn’t know how much oxygen he has left. Or will it be the CO2 that kills him? The actual logistics of being buried alive have never occurred to him.

“Not exactly,” Wash says, when he can trust his voice again.

“... where are you?” Tucker’s on edge, Wash can hear it in his voice.

“There’s no gun on me,” Wash says automatically, instead of giving the passcode that would tell Tucker that he was in immediate danger. There’s not a lot of give to the padding of the coffin lid. He grinds his teeth together.

Tucker exhales sharply. “Did you find Felix?”

“I think he found me,” Wash says. _Shit_ , how long was he out for? How long did it take Felix to bury him? How much oxygen had he already burned while he was asleep, let along in his initial panic when he realized what had happened to him? “Tucker I—I think I’m in a coffin.” He swallows. “And I think it’s been buried.”

Tucker doesn’t say anything for a long time. “ _Fuck_!” He finally says. “Wash, Wash, hold on, okay? We’re going to—we’re gonna find you, okay?”

“Well _good luck_ with that!” Wash inhales sharply as Felix’s voice comes through the phone as well. He must have hacked in somehow, maybe tampered with Wash’s phone to eavesdrop on all calls.

“ _Felix_ ,” Tucker growls. “Where’s Wash?”

“Uh, uh, _uh_!” Felix sings. “Oh, come _on_ Tucker, you don’t expect me to just _give you_ that information, do you?”

There’s a scuffle, and then Carolina is on the phone. “I will kill you,” she promises, calmly. Wash tries to be reassured, but there’s nothing reassuring. He’s in a coffin, and he’s been buried, by one of the most twisted people that any of them have ever met. This is a game, the start of something bigger, and Wash is in the center of it.

“Then you’ll never find Washington,” Felix says. “There’s fifteen construction sites, three cemeteries, and _who knows_ how many abandoned lots within an acceptable radius for me to have buried him. He’ll be _long_ out of air by the time you’ll check them all.”

“What do you _want_ , Felix?” Tucker’s back—Carolina must have put the phone on speaker. Wash can imagine the others, maybe even the Reds, clustered around the phone. He knows what their expressions will be; it’ll just be like last time they faced down Felix, staring at the video of him and Tucker, trying to put together enough clues to figure out where they were.

“I spent six months in prison because of you guys,” Felix says. “So I want to watch you _squirm_ for a bit.You’re supposed to be the best, right? I put together a treasure hunt for you.” He laughs, and Wash’s skin crawls. “Assuming Wash doesn’t do anything strenuous... you’ve probably got... oh, two hours?”

There’s a beeping noise. “Just sent you the coordinates for the first clue,” Felix says. “Have fun!” He disconnects.

“Wash, don’t—just keep calm, okay?” Tucker is pleading, his voice shaking. “We’re going to get you out of there, okay?”

“Got it,” Wash says. He tries to keep his breathing shallow, tries to slow down his heart rate. “Stay—stay with me?”

“Don’t—don’t talk okay? That’ll use up oxygen. I’m here, I’ll talk for both of us.”

“Okay,” Wash says. He pulls the phone away so that he can turn the volume up all the way and shine the light of his screen around his prison. The padding on the inside is pale blue, and Wash somehow can’t help but feel that it’s mocking him, somehow. That Felix somehow knew what that color symbolized, what it meant to Wash, and buried him in a coffin that was lined with that color just to taunt him. Wash didn’t even know that the linings _came_ in different colors.

Wash wants to punch something, but there’s no use. He’s trapped and helpless, in a box, and he’s not sure that Felix would really make it as easy as a treasure hunt. It doesn’t make _sense_.

Tucker is still talking on the other end, talking about some story about Junior, one that sounds vaguely familiar, but it’s not the words that matter to Wash, not right now. It’s Tucker’s voice, washing over him. Shaking and unsteady and worried as it is, he’s still talking. As long as Tucker is talking, it’s all going to be okay.

Wash checks the battery, and makes sure to close all other apps. Luckily, his habit of keeping his phone fully charged is paying off; he’s not sure how long it will last while taking a phone call, but he’s got a while. But it gives him a thought, one that has him risk another sentence and all the precious oxygen it has. “Can you track the GPS?” He asks, hopefully. Tucker’s probably already tried it, but maybe he’ll get lucky.

“No,” Tucker says. “I tried. I’m sorry. I even called Church.”

“It’s okay,” Wash says.

“ _Damn it_ ,” Tucker says. “Stop talking, dumbass, you’re gonna—gonna...”

 _Die sooner_.

Wash doesn’t respond, just closes his eyes and listens as Tucker hands the phone off to Caboose for a bit, to rest his voice and to do something to help the others.

Caboose’s voice isn’t shaking. “It’s okay, Wash!” Caboose reassures him. “I am _very_ good at hide and seek, and I know _you’re_ very good at the quiet game! It will all be fine.”

Wash finds himself smiling a bit, despite himself. His legs are getting cramped, and he panics for a moment, wondering if it’s a sign of oxygen deprivation. He grips the phone harder, and checks the battery again. He’s still okay.

It will last longer, he knows, if he turns the screen brightness down. But...

He doesn’t want to be in the dark.

“Wash, you still there? Just hum okay, we found another clue, we’re moving, it’s going to be fine, we’re going to find you, you hear me? We’re coming for you.”

There’s a soft noise, and Wash pulls the phone away from his ear, scared of what he’s going to see.

There’s a text message on the screen.

_I wouldn’t bet on them finding you in time. ;)_

It’s from an unknown number, but Wash knows who it’s from. Knows it as clearly as if he’d heard it in Felix’s smarmy voice.

He closes the text and nearly blocks it, before realizing that Tucker might be able to trace it if— _when_ —he finds Wash, so he stops himself.

Tucker is still talking, and Wash makes himself pay attention to the story, to try to stop thinking about how stale the air is, and how he _thinks_ it might be getting harder to breathe, and how he has no idea how far away he even is from Tucker and the others.

 _Two hours_ , he reminds himself. But all they have for that is Felix’s word, and _that_ makes Wash panic long enough that Tucker starts yelling at him to breathe on the other end.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Wash is breathing too much.

By the time that Wash manages to slow down his breathing again, it feels like an eternity has passed, but Wash is still in the coffin and Tucker is still talking on the other end.

He’s burned time, that’s the worst part of it. He’s just made it all that much harder for them to find him soon enough to rescue him.

Every part of him feels sore. Despite the padding of the coffin, it’s hard beneath his back and the angles are terrible. It’s getting harder to breathe, and Wash thinks he keeps seeing spots swimming in the corners of his vision. He knows the signs of oxygen deprivation, and he’s not sure how real they are. This could all be in his head, this could all be in his head, this could all be...

The phone lets out the text tone again.

_They’re cutting it close, aren’t they?_

“We’re close, okay Wash? We’re getting close.” Tucker says, and Wash wants to cry, because he’s going to die here, six feet in the ground, with Tucker’s voice in his ear and the walls of the coffin closing in on him on all sides.

“Tucker,” Wash says, and his voice is thin and reedy and breathing is hard, harder than ever. “I think—” He coughs, his lungs trying to fill with air, but there’s _not enough air_ and he tries to keep calm. “Tucker I think I’m—”

“ _Wash_!”

The sound of gunfire fills the air, and Wash realizes that this, this was Felix’s plan all along. Panic for Tucker, for Carolina, for Caboose, for all of the others seizes him, but there’s not even enough air for him to scream for them.

“Wash, listen to me, okay?” Tucker is panicking. In the background, Wash hears Sarge yelling.

“I can’t,” Wash can barely manage to speak. It feels like someone has piled bricks on his chest. His fingers are trembling as he holds the cell phone. It takes every ounce of his will not to drop it, because if he drops it, he loses Tucker’s voice, and he can’t handle that, he _can’t_.

“Wash, if you can hear me, take a deep breath, as deep as you can, and _hold it_ ,” Tucker begs. Wash struggles, trying to do what Tucker asks, but it’s _hard_ and he doesn’t know if he can believe that this will work. He can hear them but he’s six feet under, how can they— “I know you can do this,” Tucker says. “I know you can.”

Someone above him screams, but Wash can’t tell who.

“Wash! _Wash_! You have to make it through this, you hear me?” Tucker’s voice is ragged too, as if he’s been running. “Because...” There’s such a long pause that Wash feels himself beginning to panic again. “Because you're my friend, and I need you.” Tucker takes another loud breath that Wash can’t help but envy. “Got that David? I _need_ you. You can’t die. Not now, okay?”

Wash wants to say something. Say it back, maybe? But he can’t, he needs the air, he needs—

“Wash! Roll to the left!” Carolina’s voice rings out, above him instead of through the phone, and Wash barely manages to do so, dropping the phone in the process. He nearly screams as a bullet slams through the lid of the coffin, expecting a shower of dirt, but instead only sunlight and air comes through.

He wasn’t six feet under, he realizes as he greedily starts to gasp for air. Felix had buried him, but not all the way.

“Caboose, get him out of there!”

The lid to the coffin is ripped open, and Wash yells, blinded by the light and the air, but he doesn’t even care, grabbing at Caboose’s hand, clambering out of the coffin, tumbling forward into Tucker’s arms.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tucker whispers, clinging to him. “ _Fuck_ , Wash.”

“Thank you,” Wash whispers, clinging to Tucker, dizzy with the rush of oxygen. “Thank you for staying, thank you—”

He falls to his knees, and Tucker goes with him, arms around him the whole while, and Wash just breathes as deeply as he can and holds onto Tucker with everything he’s got.


End file.
